Realm Runners

CHAPTER FOURTY THREE: The Thayan Threat

3

AUG/14

Liches

Aces and Cliff charge in for Valindra, pressuring her into Fey Stepping away. Megilwath and Fanidea corner and subdue one of the Bone Archivists, and she raises it as a minion that she promptly names Boney. She sends Boney to attack another Archivist. Ehd directs combat and keeps the third Archivist busy. Modreg sneaks around in the shadows. Valindra attempts to bargain with the heroes. Asking that if they allow her to live, she will not send her army against Neverwinter. When that fails she begins to threaten. They discover her to be a Lich, and that they can’t kill her unless discovering where she hides her Phylactery, which could be hidden anywhere. Aces and Cliff wear her down and knock her unconscious.

The other two Bone Archivists are destroyed, along with Boney. Fanidea searches the tomb and discovers a [Necklace of Fate +3] Aces investigates the portal that Valindra was channeling and when she steps through, she finds herself in the Shadowfell. She quickly steps back through and tells the party they have to find another way out. Cliff slings the Eladrin Lich over his shoulder, and they attempt to make their way out of the Tomb of the Nine with Fanidea leading the way.

The Golden Griffon

Mentathenis, Sam, Nitzi, Athena, Droggle, Splug and Mira Shadowmoon, fly over the Neverwinter Wood atop their Hippogriff mounts. Below them, bursts of spell flame and the sound of clashing swords ring out as the battle between the New Sharandar Eladrin and the remaining Shadovar ground forces continues.

Mentathenis asks Mira how the battle is going and she tells him it’s going well. He requests that they be flown to Neverwinter and she and the Hippogriff group drop them at the gates. She thanks them for their help and Droggle asks if he can keep one of the Hippogriffs, but Mira informs him that Hippogriffs don’t like to be separated. They say their goodbyes, and Athena gets a list of Inns in Neverwinter from the guards that the six may stay at. Sam browses it for something that Lythannis would approve of. The Golden Griffon. Mentathenis notices a flier for the Lex Broadbarn Faire, though they are two days late. Another flier is a wanted poster for 10,000 gold by the order of the city guard for the bringing to justice of the defiler of Neverwinter Graveyard. Sam makes note.

When they arrive at the Golden Griffon, they are excitedly greeted by Celestine, Lythannis’ beloved Pegasus. They enter the establishment and Sam, using Sona’s guise inquires about the rooms on the top floor. He says two of the four rooms have been rented. And when uses her charm to ask by who, he replies Lythannis Ec’thillion and Terrlen Darkseeker.

They rent the other two rooms Droggle receives a statue of a Golden Griffon and they all head upstairs. They knock on Lythannis’ room and when he opens the door, he almost faints, disbelieving his eyes that his friends are alive. He embraces each of them in a tight hug. After Sam finds out that the rest of the group haven’t returned from Neverwinter Graveyard, Mentathenis takes a private moment together with Lythannis and Nitzi feels left out.

CSI: Neverwinter

After Athena, Droggle and Splug retire to regain their strength, Mentathenis rejoins Sam and Nitzi in the lobby, they decide to go out looking for their friends.

At the Neverwinter Graveyard they discover the defiled graves of dead knights and honored combatants. They find the door busted in on the groundskeepers shack and his five day old body laying in the floor. Sam concludes that he was killed by a knife to the back. But the other half of their party is nowhere to be found.

They head to the guards barracks for more information about the wanted flier. The guard is dismayed to find that the grounds keeper has been killed, and tells them that they have the feeling that it’s the Empire of Thay who is behind the grave robbing. Mentathenis knows Thay to have one of the largest populations of undead in all Faerun.

They return to the graveyard to look for more clues. Among the many mud tracked footprints, Sam is able to spot the prints of a goblin. Following these leads them around the graveyard a bit and then back to the grounds keeper’s shack, where they find the guards collecting the body of the murdered old man. Sam is angered by being unable to find where they all disappeared to.

The Icy Chill of Death

Fanidea leads the group through the labyrinthine tombs. She backtracks a few times attempting to find her way around collapsed sections. A few levels up, the party comes across a room covered in an icy veil, and it chills them to the bone. Whispers can be heard and four Winter Wights coalesce from the icy walls and charge the heroes. They find out before long, that with their deathly attacks and the ability to regenerate, the wights are quite powerful.

During the fight, Modreg sneaks around exploring the coffins nearby. The Wraith Blade tells Megilwath that the Tombs are great places to meet new friends, and that it is inviting someone named “Smiley” down to try out wielding the evil weapon. As the wights begin to drop. The sound of moans and screams starts coming down the halls from up ahead. Tombwalker Zombies and Skeleton Dreadguards shamble into the room attracted to the blade’s call. Before the fight is done, both Aces, Megilwath and Fanidea are knocked unconscious and nearly killed. Fanidea manages to stand again using her amulet. Cliff, still carrying Valindra around under his arm, holds off the remaining tomb inhabitants with support from Ehd and Modreg, as Fanidea, Megilwath and Aces heal up.

Finally Smiley, an Entropic Reaper shows up and declares that the Wraith Blade is his, and that he will not be stopped from attaining it. Aces and Cliff batter him around as Ehd and Fanidea lend support from a distance. They learn that Smiley is trapped in the tomb and he wants the Wraith Blade to keep the Thayans away, and stop them from ressurecting his companions and taking them away.

Once Smiley is shattered, the group notices a faint pulsing glow eminating from a ring on Valindra’s Finger.